The Influence Machine and Antennae
Accelerator launched its artistic activities in October 2016 with the outdoor multimedia installations Influence Machine and Antennae by the video art pioneer Tony Oursler. The works were shown on Frescati campus in collaboration with the art museum Magasin III.
Tony Oursler "The Influence Machine", 2000-2002. Installation view from Accelerator 2016. Photo Ingmarie Andersson.
Tony Oursler "The Influence Machine", 2000-2002. Installation view from Accelerator 2016. Photo Jean-Baptiste Béranger.
Tony Oursler "Antennae", 2002. Installation view from Accelerator 2016. Photo Jean-Baptiste Béranger.
About the exhibition
In The Influence Machine (2000-2002), Tony Oursler combines snippets of voices from the history of technology, pictures of heads and a knocking hand which are all projected in the darkness onto clouds of smoke, trees and surrounding buildings. Words, images and sound create a dramatic open-air artwork. Scientific figures in the installation include physicist and magician Etienne-Gaspard Robert, television pioneer John Logie Baird, and Philo T. Farnsworth, an inventor who was crucial to the all-electronic TV. Other people and technicians appear in the work like the Fox sisters who were famous in the US during the mid-1800s for using “knocks” to communicate with the dead.
The site of Accelerator’s future exhibition space – the cooling tank above the old particle accelerator in Manne Siegbahn’s laboratory – hosted the artwork Antennae (2002) for 3 weeks in the evenings. The work consists of numerous antennas and parabolic dishes, creating a framework onto which singing, swirling faces are projected. The work is part of Magasin III’s collection and is part of a larger series entitled STATION, created by Tony Oursler in 2002.
About Tony Oursler
Tony Oursler lives and works in New York. Since the 1970s he has worked with different materials including painting, sculpture, video and installations. In his works his interest in technology is related to psychology and the supernatural is a recurring theme. He is known for combining hallucinatory, poetic texts and projections onto dolls in violent and humorous settings.
Both The Influence Machine (2000-2002) and Antennae (2002) are part of Tony Oursler’s exploration of the history of technology, particularly of television. Through projections, sound and smoke clouds, he dramatizes the themes of transmission and reception, the presence of technology in daily life and, by extension, the social and physical influence of media.
Tony Oursler “The Influence Machine”, 2000-2002. Installation view from Accelerator 2016. Photo Ingmarie Andersson. 
Tony Oursler “The Influence Machine”, 2000-2002. Installation view from Accelerator 2016. Photo Ingmarie Andersson. 
Tony Oursler “The Influence Machine”, 2000-2002. Installation view from Accelerator 2016. Photo Ingmarie Andersson. 
Tony Oursler “The Influence Machine”, 2000-2002. Installation view from Accelerator 2016. Photo Ingmarie Andersson. 
Tony Oursler “The Influence Machine”, 2000-2002. Installation view from Accelerator 2016. Photo Ingmarie Andersson. 
Tony Oursler “The Influence Machine”, 2000-2002. Installation view from Accelerator 2016. Photo Ingmarie Andersson. 
Tony Oursler “Antennae”, 2002. Installation view from Accelerator 2016. Photo Jean-Baptiste Béranger.
Credits
Accelerator
Richard Julin, Artistic Director
Katarina Renman Claesson, Lawyer, Advisor
Magasin III Museum & Foundation for Contemporary Art
Tessa Praun, Chief Curator
Jennifer Lindblad, Assistant Curator
Christopher Garney, Chief Technician
Lisa Boström, Communications Manager
Sara Källström, curator Program & Education
Magasin III for Antennae
Thomas Nordin, Chief Technician collection
Peter Wiklund, Technician
Joakim Enoksen, Technician
Team projectors and smoke machines
Jasmine Hinks
Elena Jarl
Iliane Kiefer
Alba Martinez
Marika Eriksson
Kajsa Kiuttu
Max Olofsson
Ronja Pedersen
Informationsteknik AB
Victor Eklund